A Life's Mistake, etc

Front matter

A LIFE'S MISTAKE A NOVEL. By Mrs H. LOVETT CAMERON, AUTHOR OF DECEIVERS EVER," " JULIET'S GUARDIAN," (<VERA NEVILL," "PURE GOLD," <(A NORTH COUNTRY MAID," " IN A GRASS COUNTRY," ETC, ETC. " Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not, Love may sink by slow decay, But by sudden wrench believe not, Hearts can thus be torn away." — Byron. LN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: WARD & DOWNEY, 12 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1886. [All Sights reserved.] COLSTON AND C0MPANT, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. CONTENTS.

I GO BACK TO FOLLERTON, . . .

Chapter I. How

I AM LEFT ALONE. " Conscience does make cowards of us all." Shakespeare. DON'T think I shall ever forget that same little French salon at the hotel in the Place Vendome — not if I grow to be quite an old woman, not if my memory grows dim, and the light of my eyes becomes quenched in darkness, and my ears are dulled into an eternal silence. I shall always remember the high, narrow room, with its two tall VOL. II. A French windows — I shall always see before me the red velvet chairs ranged round the wall ; the huge chandelier hanging from the ceilins* over the round table in the middle ; the lace curtains tied up with blue ribbons ; the sofa, with its shabby gilded arms ; and I shall always hear the slow, melancholy ticking of the ormolu clock upon the marble chimney piece, whereon the goddess Diana inter minably drew her bow, and the stag at which she aimed her arrow unceasingly escaped her by standing on its two hind legs.

I don't know how long I sat there alone. It might have been only ten minutes, it might have been three-quarters of an hour. I took no heed of time. The whole of my faculties, mental and physical, were absorbed in one intense effort. I was trying to realise what had happened to me. Something had happened that had altered me for ever, that had made another woman of me, that had blighted my whole life, as the summer leaves of the forest are blighted by the first frost of the autumn. What was this something ? I had mar ried my husband from a certain set of motives. They were not, it is true, very high or elevated motives ; but still, such as they were, they had been sufficient to make me undertake my new responsibili ties with a fair amount of interest and energy. I had determined to begin my life afresh, to wipe out the old chapters of my story, and to make myself happy with the good things which Providence had put before me.

And I had been happy. It had not been rapturous joy, but it had been at least the calmness of content. But how would it be with me now ? — now that these motives, upon which I had built my happiness, had crumbled away beneath my feet — now that I knew they had never had any existence, save in the imaginations of my own brain — now that the truth was laid bare to me ? I had been tricked into marrying Stephen Hardcastle, partly by my own foolish blindness, and partly by my brother's shameful dupbcity. And then there was a question which kept again and again coming back to me, and which in vain I pushed back and kept at arm's length, as it were, from my mind : Had my husband, indeed, been guiltless in the matter ? I had been very brave and decided as long as Helen was with me. I had put a bold face upon it.

I had told her that deception was an impossibility to him. But, when I was left alone with my own thoughts, was I quite so sure of it? A horrible haunting idea that my hus band, too, had been in the plot against me kept ever recurring to my mind with a frightful persistency. I remembered, and shuddered at the tenacity of my own memory, even as I remembered, how strangely he had looked at me sometimes — what a sudden pallor had once or twice overspread his countenance at some chance word of mine — how I had noticed of late that he avoided being long alone with me. Was not that since the day when I had so impulsively told him how en tirely and unreservedly I trusted and be lieved in him? And, worse than all, I recollected, with an agonising distinctness, those strange, passionate words he had once spoken to me when he had clasped me to his heart in his mother's drawing room in London.

"What is there I would not do ? " he had cried. " What madness would I not be guilty of, what depth of degradation would I not wade through, to make you my own ? " What had been the meaning of those wild words ? Had they not been spoken on the very evening when I had met Mr Hervey Warner, and when I had told Stephen that his son was my lover ? Was it possible that he, too, knew of my error, and allowed me to continue in my mistake, so that he himself might win me ? If this were so, then, what was to become of my married life ? What chance had I of happiness ever more ? So I sat on in the silence of the little room till the short winter afternoon closed in — till the firelight, flickering faintly over the white and gold paper of the walls, was the only light in the room. I sat with my head leaning upon my hand, staring idly into the wood fire.

Now and then the logs fell in with a crash, and a shower of blue sparks sprang up, and a little How L am left Alone. 7 flame darted forth and flickered merrily for a few minutes over the folds of my heavy winter dress, then died away again into a deeper gloom than before. Presently I heard the door of the adjoin ing room open, and someone moving about in it. It was my maid, I supposed, putting out my evening-dress. I listened mechani cally to the sound of her footsteps going backwards and forwards across the room and, as it seemed, on to my husband's dressing-room beyond. I heard the opening and shutting of drawers, and then something dropped apparently heavily on the floor. How careless that woman was ! I said to myself — she was always knocking the things off the table — and what a long time she was about it to-night !

We were to go to the opera that evening. It must be time for me to dress. But I did not move. What heart had I to array myself in satin and velvet ? A minute later, the bedroom door closed softly, and all was quiet again. I scarcely noticed it, I was so absorbed in my own painful thoughts, for I was slowly and surely making up my mind to do some thing which it almost frightened me to think of. I was saying to myself that if, indeed, Stephen Hardcastle had tricked and deceived me into marrvins; him, then I would be a wife no longer to him ; I would leave him ; I would tell him to his face that I hated and loathed him, and I would turn my back upon him for ever. I felt angry and bitter against him. The dawning love that had been slowly awakening in my heart since our marriage day was crushed and smothered within me.

I thought of my young lover, whom I had loved, who had entreated me to be true to him, and who had been lansuishino* in a horrible captivity, whflst I, who should have been mourning and praying for him, was being wooed and wedded, unconscious of his sufferings and of his misery. Life had been hard for me ; things had combined too strongly against me. I felt full of angry rebellion against my fate. Marriage vows thus wrested out of one were surely no longer binding ; how could I continue to live with a man whom I had never loved, and whom I had ceased to honour ? I would leave him ; and yet, as I made the resolve, I trembled. I must, at any rate, see him first. I said to my self that I would not condemn him unheard. I would be just to him. He should tell his own story, and, unconsciously to my self, there was an aching longing at my heart that he might be able to clear him self — that he might deny all participation in my brother's deception.

Oh, if he only could ! All this while it did not occur to me to notice how late it was getting, nor to wonder why my husband had not returned long ago. Suddenly the door opened, and Nina Thirlwall entered, followed immediately by a waiter, bearing a lamp. " What ! sitting all alone in the dark ? " she exclaimed. " And vou are not dressed, Mrs Hardcastle ! Are you not going, then ? " I stood up mechanically, and looked at her. She was dressed in a pale blue dress covered with lace, and a thick fur cloak was over her arm. She was buttoning on her gloves as she came in. " Going where, Nina ? " I asked, wandering. " Why, to dine with the De Maupins, at their house in the Champs Elysdes — those nice French people whose acquaint ance we made the other day. We met them, and they asked us to dinner, and we are to go to the opera afterwards, and I am to go with you.

Mamma says I may go. Did not your husband tell vou ? " "My husband!" I repeated blankly. Where is he ? " " Oh, he came in an hour ago — we came in together. We met the De Maupins as we were coming out of the Louvre. You will be so late, Mrs Hardcastle ; do go and dress." At this minute my maid, entering the room, asked me what dress I would wear. " What dress ? Why you put it out ages ago. I heard you in my room." " Indeed, ma'am, I am very sorry ; but I went out for a little turn and lost my way in these dreadful streets — there's so many of them, you see, and all with such outlandish foreign names — I did think I never should get back here, and that is why I am so late, ma'am ; and I am sure I hope you will pardon me ; it shall not happen again." I pushed by her, and flew to the door of my room ; a sudden nameless terror filled my heart.

The maid and Nina followed me with the lamp ; I think they were frightened by my scared face. I entered my room, it was empty. Breath lessly I passed on through the door beyond it into my husband's dressing-room, which was half open. Tremblingly I pressed forward. The wardrobe was wride open and utterly empty ; his brushes and all his little knicknacks had been cleared off the dressing-table, his coat from the nail on the door where it had hung, his dressing bag from off the little table in the window, his portmanteau from the corner where it had stood — all were gone. " Law, ma'am ! the master must have gone away ! " exclaimed the lady's-maid, How L am left Alone. 13 with consternation mingled with the delight in a catastrophe such as is always experi enced by persons of her class. " I don't want you, Hawkins, you may go," I said shortly, and I was left alone with Nina.

"Tell me at once," I cried breathlessly, " what happened when you were out with him ? Was he ill ? had anything upset him ? " Nina put the lamp down upon the table before answering me. " I don't think he was ill," she said quietly, as though endeavouring to recall what had occurred. " We met the De Maupins at the door of the Louvre, they walked a little way with us, and then, when they left us, we walked straight home. A lady stopped and spoke to us at the corner of the street — an English lady." " Ah ! — tell me what she was like ? " " She had fair hair — she was very pretty ; and she stopped and asked your husband if his name was not Hardcastle ? " " Yes ; what did she say ? " "I did not hear; I looked in at a shop window whilst they were talking." " It was Helen ! " I said aloud, not remembering that Nina would not under stand me ; " and my husband has gone ! "

Chapter II. How Mr Hardcastle Wrote To Me

" To weep that trust and that deceiving." F. A. Kemble. INA was looking about the room ; even at this moment, when I was so full of my troubles, I could not help remarking how quiet and self-controlled this young girl was. She had uttered no cries, no useless words of pity or condolence ; she had simply answered the questions I had asked her, without comment or remark. She seemed now to be searching for something. I had sunk down into a chair, overpowered by a sense of helpless loneli ness, and I watched her movements mecha nically. She hunted about on the chest of drawers, and on the dressing-table, and finally on a little writing-table, littered over with parcels and papers, and with all sorts of little ornaments which my husband had purchased for me during our daily walks. " Dear Mrs Hardcastle," she cried suddenly, " here is a letter for you ; it must be from your husband.

I felt sure there must be one from him somewhere ; he will have explained his departure in it. You will soon be happier about him." She placed a thick envelope in my hands addressed to myself, and kissing me softly on the forehead as she went, left me alone. Tremblingly I broke the seal, and read the letter which he had written to me : — " My Wife, — When you open this letter I shall have left Paris. You will be at no loss to guess the reason. I have met Mrs Warner in the street, and she told me that she came from seeing you. The truth, which I believe you have often guessed, must now be fully revealed to you. You will know your husband now for what he is, and you will not forgive me ! If you loved me you might, perhaps, do so in time ; but you do not love me, and that implicit confidence in me which you have professed, and which was the only hold I have been able to gain over you, will be shattered for ever !

I am unable to bear your reproaches. Cruel words of hatred and disgust from your sweet lips would kill me ; and therefore, my wife — oh ! be loved and sinned for in vain — therefore I leave you ! " Will you have patience with me for a little space whilst I tell you the story of my temptation and of my fall ? Long ago, VOL. 11. B before I ever spoke to you of my love, I knew the name of my rival : your brother told me. He told me, too, that your acquaint ance with him wras of recent date, and that he did not believe you to be deeply attached to him. It was that, I think, that first gave me the hope that I might win you. Your brother assured me that, from a worldly point of view, the match was an undesirable one ; in short, he allowed me plainly to see that your father and he would be in favour of my suit rather than of Mr Frank Warner's, should I press it.

Perhaps it was natural that he should say so, knowing to what an extent your family were dependent upon me. " After that came the news in the paper of the murder of the sailors of the ' Anti gone.' Your lover's name was mentioned in full as one of the victims. I dreaded the effect upon you ; but when I came down to Follerton the same day, I found that you had not even seen a paper, and that by some oversight your father had not noticed the paragraph. " At first I thought it a kindness not to tell you : you would hear of it in time, I supposed, and meanwhile your visit to Harley Street was impending. My whole heart was set upon that visit. I was determined that nothing should prevent your going there. To get you to my mother's house was such an enormous step in my favour ; and believing, as I did, that your lover was dead, I saw that I must win my cause in time.

" Then there came simultaneously the report of his being alive, and your singular mistake with regard to his cousin. The first reduced me to despair ; the second opened the door of hope once more to me. If you believed him to be unworthy of you, my cause was won at once ! You little thought that night that we were alone in the drawdng-room at Harley Street — the night of the dinner-party — what a terrible conflict was going on wdthin me, when you turned your eyes upon me, love, all wet with tears, and entreated me so piteously to tell you if there was not some horrible mistake. I had hard work to keep my iniquitous resolve. To deceive you was the most terrible task I had ever had to perform. But it 'was yourself that was in the balance, and that made the temptation too strong for me. " I have no other excuse but my love.

Sufficient to say that I yielded to the voice of evil which tempted me, and I allowed you to continue in your mistake. Once married to me, I fancied in my folly that you would learn to love me and to forgive me all. I hurried our weddino* forward as much as I dared ; I knew that discovery of the truth must soon come to you, and I knew also that at any minute Frank Warner might return. I thought that once married I should not care ; but my life since our marriage has been as much a torture as a delight. I have never had a moment of peace. Remorse for what I had done ; dread of a discovery of the truth, which I knew the first sight of Mrs Warner must infallibly bring ; but, worse than all, the conviction that I had no power over your heart, have rendered the few weeks of our married life almost too terrible to be borne.

Only the other day, when you stung me to the heart by speaking of your trust and belief in 'my goodness,' I well-nigh told you all — only that I was too great a coward to ruin my brief delirium of happiness with my own hands. But now, Maggie, that you know by what a system of fraud I induced you to marry me, now I am leaving you for ever. I know that of vour own free will you will not wish to live with me any longer, and I will not bear the anguish of hearing you say so. I cannot compel you to remain with me against your will. I believe that I am now doing the only service which it is in my power to render you, by relieving you of a presence which must be hateful and re pulsive to you. You, who are truth itself, how could you live with one who has cheated and deceived you so basely ? The only thing I ask of you is that you will not increase my shame and punishment by declining to receive from me the allowance which I shall place in the hands of your trustees for your use, that is the only reminder of my existence which I will force upon you.

And now farewell. I know your nature too wrell to believe that you will ever forgive me ; but remember always through all, and in spite of all, that I have loved you very dearly. S. H." The letter fluttered from my nerveless fingers upon the floor. I sat quite still, in a sort of numb, feelingless apathy. It was as if I had lost the power of thought and of sensation, — as if I were not my self, but were reading the story of someone else, — someone in no way connected with me. I felt as one just awakened out of sleep, who cannot remember what happened when he lay down to rest ; some thing had happened to me — what was it ? Presently I got up, and began to move slowly about the room. I touched the little odds and ends on my dressing-table, then I caught sight of my own face in the glass, and almost started at my wild and haggard appearance.

Could it be true that my husband had left me ? — that he would never come back to me again ? — that I was to live my life henceforth without him? Curiously enough, it was not just then the certainty of his deception towards me that impressed me so much, as the fact of his having left me in consequence of it. Why should he leave me ? I asked myself wearily. It had seemed easy enough to me to effect a separation between us by my own act ; but now that he had taken the vengeance I had prepared for him out of my hands, the strength of my indignation against him seemed to have half died away. Why was he so sure that I should never forgive him ? Was I indeed so hard and pitiless, and so utterly without affection towards him ? Was it thus that he had read my character ? Perhaps he was right ; perhaps he had but judged me truly.

Had he stayed to plead his own cause, it is certain that I should have been very bitter against him, and very relentless in my determination to leave him. But now that he had forestalled my inten tions and gone of his own accord, I only felt a vague sense of desolation and lone liness. A soft tap at the door disturbed me, and Mrs Thirlwall came gently into my room. " My dear, I hear from Nina that you are in trouble — can I not help you ? " She held out her soft, motherly arms to me, and with a sob, like a tired child, my head sunk down upon her shoulder. " Oh ! I am very miserable ! " I cried, weeping. " Poor child ; will you not tell me your trouble ? " " No," I said, raising my head with a sudden pride. " No ; " for how can a woman speak against her husband ? "I cannot tell you why it is so, but he has left me."

" But only for a time, I trust, my poor child." I shook my head. " I don't know. But, oh ! what shall I do, left alone in a foreign country ? " and I burst into a flood of passionate tears. " You shall not be left alone, Maggie. You must go back to your father's house." And then I wept anew. Oh ! it was not without cause that my wTedding-day had been so disastrous. A three weeks' bride to come back alone to her father's house ! What wTould be thought of me and of him ? And my face tingled with a shame that was to the full as poignant on his account whose name I bore, as on my own. " Oh ! clear Mrs Thirlwall, must I indeed go back alone ? " I cried piteously. "No, Maggie, not alone, for I shall go back with you. We wdl start for London to-morrow, for the sooner you are under your father's protection the better.

It is there wThere your husband will return to fetch you when this misunderstanding between you — for I feel sure it can be nothing more — has been cleared away. Ring the bell for your maid to pack your things, and we will all start to-morrow by the early train." A violent paroxysm of coughing in terrupted her, and reminded me that this woman, who but a week ago was a perfect stranger to me, had arisen from her bed to come and comfort me in my trouble. " You are not fit to go ! " I cried remorsefully. " How how ill you are ! " selfish I am to forget She smiled, and arrest my words. speak. held up her hand to She could scarcely "Do — as — I tell you," she gasped. "I shall be better in the morning." And she left me. I summoned my maid, and bade her pack my things, cutting short her as tonished exclamations and questions by ordering her to obey me in silence.

Mrs Thirlwall was as good as her word. We started for England the next morning ; and when we got to London she left Nina at the house of a friend, and took me down to Rivertown station herself, and saw me safely into a fly at the station, meaning to return to London by the next train. " I can never repay you for all your goodness to me ! " I cried, as I kissed her tearfully. She held my two hands in her own, and looked at me earnestly. " Yes, Maggie, you can if you will," she answered, and her pale sweet face lighted up writh a sudden glow of emotion. " Tell me what I can do for you ? " I cried eagerly. " You can make me a promise which will comfort me when I am dying." " Oh ! Mrs Thirlwall, I would do any thing in the world for you." " Will you give my child a home when I am gone ? " I cast my arms round her neck, and assured her that Nina should be as a sister to me. She bade me farewrell. And I never saw her again.

Chapter III Hoav My Lover Came Back To Me

" But all was false and hollow." — Milton. ND thus it came to pass, that when Frank Warner came home at last, he found me — as I had told him I should be found — at Follerton, where he had left me, awaiting his return. But, ah ! with what different feelings I waited for his coming to those with which I had once thought to welcome back my lover. The day of his return was the day of all others I dreaded and feared the most. If it had been in any way possible, I would have written to him, to have prevented his coming to Rivertown, for to Rivertown I knew he would come without a moment's delay, the instant he set foot in England. But I did not know where to write, neither did Helen, to whom I appealed for help, and who wrote to me from London, where she was now living, to say that she believed that Frank had already started on his way home, but that, unless by some chance she saw him in London on his arrival, she did not know how his going down to Rivertown could be stopped.

So I waited for him, lonely and miserable enough, in my old home. My father was ill : he kept a good deal to his own room. I found him very much aged and altered ; perhaps the severe winter had tried him overmuch, or perhaps he was only growing old. He was very feeble, and at times his mind was weak and wandering. He never could be quite made to understand how it was that I was at home again ; and every day when I wished him good-morning, he would ask me after my husband. " Is he not coming down to - day, Maggie ? " he would say querulously ; and I used to answer, as I kissed him, — " Not to-day, papa." "Ah! that is strange," he wrould reply thoughtfully ; " but perhaps you will hear from him to-morrow." " Perhaps." But I made no effort to explain to him how that Stephen and I were so absolutely parted, that I literally did not know even where he was.

I was thankful to feel that my father, at least, whatever may have been his faults, and however selfishly he had sacrificed me to his own welfare, had, at all events, been entirely ignorant of the deception which my brother had practised upon me. He had never known of my engagement to Frank, and I liked to think that, had he known of it, he would, at all events, not have joined in the con spiracy against me. As to Fred, his conduct was character istic. To a long letter of passionate and aDgry reproaches, which I had written to him on my return home, he had answered briefly thus, — " Dear Madge, — Very sorry you take it to heart so much, but you make a great fuss about nothing, and use a great many big words. Nobody ' deceived ' you, as you call it ; you made a very stupid mistake, and I really don't see that anyone was to blame for it but yourself.